“THE UNIVERSITY HAVE RESTRICTED THE EVENT TO MIDDLESEX STUDENTS & STAFF ONLY…PLEASE EMAIL MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY TO SEEK THEIR JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS UNPRECEDENTED RESTRICTION.”

The event was the Free Palestine Society’s The Case for Boycotting, Divesting, and Sanctions against Israel held last night. The speakers were Lauren Booth, John Rees and Asghar Bukari. The location was Middlesex University in Hendon, a highly Jewish populated suburb of London.

On her blog Booth quotes Gilad Atzmon’s anti-Semitic rhetoric extensively and tries to back him up. For example:

“No Jews do not run the world. They get others to do it for them.’”….This argument is not without example. In 2001 Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, made unguarded comments, about relations with the United States and the peace process.
“I know what America is,” he told a group of terror victims, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in their way.”

And she directly implicates British Jews in what she sees as Israel’s “crimes” when she writes:

“What must also continue, freely and without hindrance are debates into the British Jewish communities role in funding the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and East Jerusalem via such bodies as the Jewish National Fund.”

Bukhari is the founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee. MPAC was banned from university campuses in 2004 after being branded anti-Semitic by the National Union of Students and Bukhari, himself, supported and financedHolocaust denier David Irving.

Rees has, inter alia, reportedly identified with the Mahdi Army, a terror cell responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqis.

We did email Middlesex University to ask why concerned members of the public were banned, but the response bore no relation to the question. Middlesex University responded:

“This is a Students’ Union supported society event which is open to students and staff at the University. As a University we have a responsibility to protect freedom of speech within the law and support the rights of our students to meet and discuss issues that matter to them. The University hosts a wide range of events, presenting many different views, and we would not seek to prevent them or influence the content unless there are very strong grounds to do so.”

When I contacted Sam Spindlow, of Corporate Communications at Middlesex University and who was responsible for disseminating the statement, even he agreed that the statement did not explain why the public was banned, but said he could go no further than that.

The reality is that ata similar event at Middlesex University last year Ken O’Keefe compared Jews to Nazis, and Jenny Tonge said that “Israel won’t be here forever” for which she was chucked out of the Liberal Democrats.

Middlesex University’s new policy seems to be to allow hate speech to go virtually unopposed. Concerned members of the public are to be banned from anti-Israel events, although whether this policy is legal is open to question with Middlesex University being a taxpayer funded institution.

A few defiant members of Middlesex University’s Jewish Society did attend last night. One walked out in disgust at what was being said about Israel. She said that a pro-Israel question was asked during the Q&A but was dismissed by Lauren Booth as being “too Zionist a question to take seriously.” Another member of the Jewish Society handed out pro-Israel leaflets afterwards.

Jonathan Hoffman and I weren’t allowed in so we waited outside till the end and engaged in discussion with the students as they exited the room. We didn’t get very far though. We were told we were “child killers” and as I left a student shouted at me “Go back to Golders Green*.”

That kind of vile racism has now become the norm at anti-Israel events, but Middlesex University dangerously continues to look away.

*Golders Green is another highly Jewish populated suburb of London.** Thanks to Stand For Peace for its research on Booth, Bukhari and Rees.

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I have just been reading on a newswebsite about how hamas has children in Hitler style youthcamps to train them so that when the time is right they can liberate the land from the Jordan river to the sea. How come no university is taking that on? Frankly they are using a nazi name for these camps that was used in the 1930’s. The universities in the UK for the most part have taken too much dirty lucre from the holders of black liquid gold and are in thrall to Islamists. Instead of being bastions for learning and democracy they are slowly being nazified aided by the dictum no hate speech. However they allow hate speech and lies when it comes to Israel. How evil we have become. I would that this article about the nazi Hamas youth camps would go mainstream however I fear the sheeple would either ignore or erroneously attempt to justify. All I can say those who align with Hamas et al are standing with the new nazis and should be ashamed of themselves. In Britain today our banks, politicians, and our universities are largely found wanting. They are corrupt, greedy, immoral and dare I say more often than not useless, not fit for purpose. What a damming indictment. Can legal challenges be made to either stop this or force the university to be open and allow the public access.

I would try to see if Middlesex University can be sued for denial of freedom of speech, libel and slander against Jews and the British Jewish Community, and blocking a fair discussion where both sides can have equal debating opportunities. Don’t know if it will work, but nought to lose.

‘Jonathan Hoffman and I weren’t allowed in so we waited outside till the end and engaged in discussion with the students as they exited the room. We didn’t get very far though. We were told we were “child killers” and as I left a student shouted at me “Go back to Golders Green*.”

Here is what actually happened. You and your little gang of three, stood outside yelling abuse at students and speakers as we entered and left. The reason the university took the decision to close the debate to the public was that your group aggressively filmed students last time and caused upset on the faculty. As for being called ‘child killers’ that didn’t happen. And as for someone shouting ‘go back to Golders Green’ – the only person I heard yelling abuse was you.
It was in the end, a thoughtful event with good speakers and excellent interest from the students. Free speech is to be applauded at Middlesex University, as is free thought. Oh and finally; Free Palestine : )
yours
Lauren Booth
Speaker

It was in the end, a thoughtful event with good speakers and excellent interest from the students. Free speech is to be applauded at Middlesex University, as is free thought. Oh and finally; Free Palestine

Free speech is when all views, including dissenting views are allowed to be expressed, (and recorded), which was obviously not possible at this event since people with different views were excluded.

Nah, Nobbly she means that everyone who has the same opinions as she has must be free to express them.The rest must be locked out.

She gets so flustered poor dear, when she encounters someone who diagrees with her and she hasn’t a cheat sheet at hand telling her how to respond. That’s when she hurries away with an elderly giggle to join the girls. We’ve seen this happen in videos with those who bother to interview her in the past.

Free speech my hat! More correct would be that it was a one-sided, bigoted diatribe involving ”one” point of view and ”one” aspect of the Israel/Palestine situation with complete disregard for the opinions and points of view of those who dare differ from yours. Oh, and if you’re SO concerned about human rights and the killing of civilians and children, why not organize a flotilla to help the Syrian population currently fleeing their home country?

Lauren Booth’s webpage cited above serves as a platform for Atzmon’s hate rants. In one example, he refers to attacks on Jews in the UK as a “response to the violence of Israeli Zionism; A frustrated backlash against a criminal, political movement. Such findings, instead of reassuring Jewish communities, act as an unsettling factor to the pro Israel lobby within them. For without Jewish victimhood, how can the human rights violations of the Jewish State be justified?”

And Booth expects us to believe a word she says about what actually was said at the campus event?

The same woman who has a) called on Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan to invade Israel b) referred to “another massacre of innocents by the Israeli war machine” c) said “so you have one state now, and the Israelis have to behave nicely and learn to live with other people – like the rest of humanity” d) called Gaza “a concentration camp run by Jewish guards” and e) at a rally screamed “I don’t care about Israeli security! … The world should take up arms against Israel!”

p.s.
Oh hang on. Sorry. That wasn’t actually a quote from Atzmon. It was one of the few passages of significant length at that blogpost that Booth penned herself. In fact, she makes Atzmon sound distinctly mild-mannered.

Lauren Booth, I am a psychologist. I have been intrigued as to what attracts women like you to embrace the extremist element of a belief system which discriminates against women, but that is by the by. Let’s look at your wording, shall we?

“Little gang of three” – “gang”, eh? Hardly much of a threat to the most supreme (allegedly) entity in the world, except, of course, when that entity is phobic of criticism of its excesses.

You don’t articulate exactly what the three yelled if they yelled. Given your propensity to be, how can I put it, confused somewhat, and your distortions of reality in the past, please tell me how I am expected to take your word for it. Look at the photographs above from the MPCAUK, which are obnoxiously insulting. How were the “gang of three” as insulting as the MPCAUK? Remember also the filth spewed by your new co-religionists at the homecoming parade of the Royal Anglians in Luton. Was this “gang of three” as insulting as they were? Those really are prime examples of abuse and yet you are struck dumb about them. Why?

I find it very difficult to believe that the university’s decision was motived by the fear you mention, rather than solid common sense. Why would they want invite the propensity for violence into their premises? Your associates set out to inflame and insult. Perhaps Middlesex has finally seen the light and doesn’t want to be associated with any of you?

And what precisely is “aggressively filmed”? Surely if you had nothing to hide….. ? No, given the propensity towards paranoia (illustrated in the Arab proverb below) and the lack of nuance, how can wanting to film you possibly be a threat?

You may be a new convert to Islam and it’s common that new converts are overzealous. And you have swallowed the attitude hook, line and sinker haven’t you even down to illustrating the Arab proverb below in your behaviour here and elsewhere. (I imagine you haven’t yet learned enough Arabic even to finish the koran so I have translated and transliterated it for you):

ضربني وبكى وسبقني واشتكى Darabni Wabaka, Saba’ni Wishtaka
“He strikes me and weeps and then he runs before me weeping and saying that I struck him”

How typical of you therefore to incite and then bleat that you are the injured party.
And how thoughtful is “thoughtful” when you cannot countenance, and want to obliterate all trace of anything which disagrees with you?

Deep insecurity pretzelberg, which leads to the hyperbolic “big talk” (a bit like a child singing in the dark so as to try not to be afraid) to convince themselves, which then turns into specious “fact” because the big talkers are stuck at the wishful thinking stage and dare not feel the shame which ensues from admitting that they were wrong in the first place, which, when it is ultimately proven to be wrong and the big talkers are publicly shamed, leads to head games with themselves whereby they attribute blame for having lied to themselves and believed their own lies, to everyone but themselves.

You’d have thought that our leaders would have copped on by now, wouldn’t you, particularly in the light of objective evidence? But no, they are stuck in the cognitive dissonance which comes of being so PC that they dare not bring themselves to disbelieve the lies they are told, even when the results of them are played out in front of them, a propensity for which Islam makes excellent use of.

And I doubt that Booth, who supposedly converted to Islam after a “spiritual moment” and admitted that she had never read the koran, probably still hasn’t got past page three, has read anything much.

Dear Lauren, May Allah give you strength to carry on powerfully in what you are doing, keep on turning a deaf ear on all ignorants and continue being like Allah said in Quraan: “The servants of the Merciful are those who walk the earth in humility, and when the ignorants address them, they say, “Peace.” Surat Al Furqaan 25: 63

ahlein, Booth doesn’t need strength. She needs to remain as she is, deaf, dumb and blind to the complexities of the interface between supremacist Islam and the rest of society, so that she can be at least an adequate and mindless dupe for her puppet masters.

And did Boko Haram do what it did recently in Nigeria in the spirit of the peace of your koran?

IIRC, it was a similar event at Middlesex last year that got Jenny Tonge into trouble with fellow Lib Dems. She was a participant alongside the war-dodging ex-US Marine Ken O’Keefe. Clearly they’re not taking any chances anymore.

John Rees was thrown out of the SWP, and was part of its leadership at a time when the party’s Central Committee was suppressing claims that a senior member of the party – ‘Comrade Delta’ – had repeatedly raped a female member.

Hardly a surprise . Middlesex university Palestine Society came unstuck last year when they tried conventional norms of open debate , free speech and counter arguments . That led to the final nail in the coffin of the wretched Jenny Tonge – well done Rich .
After that debacle their only recourse was to follow their instincts and embrace totalitarianism and the banning of free open debate .
Like all fascists organisations , the PSC and its student associates have need to conduct their sordid affairs behind closed doors so as to avoid scrutiny .
The real tragedy is that British Asian students are being exposed to virulently antisemitic speakers which in turn reinforces preconceived negative impressions of Jews in general

All in all debates of this nature cannot help but be racist given the profile of the speakers . The fault is with Middlesex university for allowing it to go ahead in the interests of so called free speech . Israeli speakers would not have been afforded the same consideration .
We are witnessing a steep descent into totalitarianism on some of our campuses . This trend has to be stopped .

Totalitarianism is a key aspect of Islam, which can brook no dissent, which is why it dare not advance. Even when argued with politely, the faithful throw a hissy fit, see the reaction to Medusa’s polite questioning of such charmers in her home town:

Pretz
I usually think of a debate as two or more contrasting sets of views and opinions discussed in a free and open forum . Democratic values etc . This was anything but . However you are right for once . To label it an event was indeed the wrong terminology .
I should have said rally as in Nuremberg Rally .

” I usually think of a debate as two or more contrasting sets of views and opinions discussed in a free and open forum . Democratic values etc . This was anything but . However you are right for once . To label it an event was indeed the wrong terminology .
I should have said rally as in Nuremberg”

I attended this event and after reading this article, I felt compelled to comment. I have to say I was pretty impressed and shocked with some of the things that I have heard from the speakers that night. Why?
Because, contrary to what some of you are trying to make it out to be, it was not a rant session where speakers were expressing their hated for Israel, not Jews, ISRAEL! However, what Did happen was this, John Rees and Lauren Booth stood there and simply stated facts, stats, and figures. Why? Because these stats and facts are THERE and are EVERYWHERE if you look beyond the mainstream media, and this session was merely intended to bring these facts up to the surfaces for the majority of the audience who probably get their daily news dose from Sky news or the BBC.

Now what is being brought to my attention is this, Israel is slowly losing its own people who are witnessing the atrocities and needless crimes being committed against other human beings. This is bound to happen because at the end of the day we are ALL human. So, Israel is feeling vulnerable and it is trying to stop the inevitable growing of hate against the occupation forces. Again, not against Jews but against the occupation FORCES!! So what do they do, the Israeli government will pay people to go out there and “support” the occupation. The comical part is that You think we don’t know this, guess what, EVERYONE in that room knew this that’s why we pretended that you weren’t even there because we know that you know who you really are, we know that you know what crimes injustice and vulgar actions Israel has committed and is still committing against the Palestinians, you choose to ignore it so we choose to ignore you.

Now you can carry on doing this for as long as you like and as much as you want to but one thing is for sure, Truth will always prevail and it is the evil doers and liars who will always have to hide their traces and fake more lies to cover their backs, it is an endless job, I feel sorry for you lot. However, for the rest of us who choose not to turn our back away from the real victims, we just wait, raise awareness, make people realise what this is really all about and we wait for the truth to conquer. And believe me the signs are there, it is not so far away. Just like in any story, the bad guys will always lose the battle… Just wait…

Do you have actual factual proof of the Israeli government paying people to ”support” the ”occupation” as you call it? if so, why not post it here? Did you hear about the Hamas thugs who executed some of their fellow countrymen at an intersection, and accused them of complicity with Israel? Know what happened to one of those poor guys? After being executed his corpse was dragged through the streets of Gaza City at the back of a motor bike.

You know what’s interesting? Even though I have little doubt that your views on the I/P conflict (or the “mainstream media”, or the Jews/Israelis shell game) have nothing in common with mine, I actually agree with the general thrust of your entire final paragraph.
“Now you can carry on doing this for as long as you like and as much as you want to but one thing is for sure, Truth will always prevail and it is the evil doers and liars who will always have to hide their traces and fake more lies to cover their backs”. Yes sir, and the sad part is how incompetent your Hamas level standard bearers are at actually revising history.
“it is an endless job, I feel sorry for you lot.” Well, it is, but as for the emotions involved…
“However, for the rest of us who choose not to turn our back away from the real victims, we just wait, raise awareness, make people realise what this is really all about and we wait for the truth to conquer. And believe me the signs are there, it is not so far away.” I agree that the truth will conquer, which is unfortunate for the lying, dissembling forces who make up most of your side.
“Just like in any story, the bad guys will always lose the battle… Just wait…” What makes you think the battle isn’t finished and that, yes, you lost it already?
My only divergence is a simple one from the emotions segement above: I don’t feel the least bit sorry for you, my time-wasting non-friend.
Peace to everyone who can define what peace is without citing any mass murderers.

You lack the insight to realise how the obsessive hatred of Israel, for existing and particularly for being Jewish and existing, weakens the haters. The essence of your post plays out for the reader the deep insecurity which haters like you feel and the reasons for it. Whom would you hate if there were no Jews or Israel? Because people like you have to hate. The bicycle riders? People with red hair? I am not entirely joking here – in the paranoid, split mindset there actually needs to be an object of hatred so that the hater can feel good about himself.

You see, no matter how much you may squeal that your hatred (and I note the word) is for Israel and not for Jews I don’t believe you and I doubt that you can even distinguish between your hatred of Jews and of Israel or know or articulate your own mind and your motivations for hating.

Given that many of the Islamists with whom you associate or whom you support don’t care to distinguish between hatred of Israel and hatred of Jews in general and use both interchangeably when they are threatening or hurling abuse, you show yourself for what you are.

Truth is prevailing. People are waking up to the cruelty and madness of Islamism all over the world, thanks to the articles on blogs such as Faith Freedom and CiF Watch which tell the truth about how the “religion of peace” treats its own women and children let alone anyone who disagrees with its savagery.

And if you knew the first thing about Islam you would know (and if you were a fully-fledged human being would be able to admit) that there can be no “peace to all” so far as Islam is concerned. According to to the koran peace can exist only between Muslim and Muslim (which often not then witness the murder and mayhem Islam perpetrates even on its brothers and sisters in faith):

Peace in Islam can exist only within the Islamic world; peace can only be between Moslem and Moslem.

With the non-Moslem world or non-Moslem opponents, there can be only one solution – a cease fire until Moslems can gain more power. It is an eternal war until the end of days. Peace can only come if the Islamic side wins. The two civilizations can only have periods of cease-fires.

The Koran sees the world as divided into two – one part which has come under Islamic rule and one part which is supposed to come under Islamic rule in the future. There is a division of the world which is very clear. Every single person who starts studying Islam knows it. The world is described as Dar al-Islam (the house of Islam) – that’s the place where Islam rules – and the other part which is called Dar al-Harb – the house of war. Not the “house of non-Muslims,” but the “house of war.” It is this house of war which as to be, at the end of time, conquered. The world will continue to be in the house of war until it comes under Islamic rule. This is the norm. Why? Because Allah says it’s so in the Koran. God has sent Mohammed with the true religion in order that the truth will overcome all other religions.

Starting and ending your ranting with the “Peace to all” slogan and then speaking about the beautiful features of gathering whose only purpose is to spitting hate speaks volumes about your and your comrades moral and intellectual level.
Thank you for the contribution

That the IDF committed mass-murder in Hebron in 2002?
That they deliberately shelled a UN school in Gaza in 2009?
That they trafficked organs from earthquake victims in Haiti?

Do tell.

Did they include the ones about Hamas having an anti-Semitic charter?
Or about the PA’s corruption?
Or about how Palestinians are treated in Palestinian jails (both in Gaza and the West Bank)?
About how Arafat rejected a peace deal in 1999 and started a futile intifada the following year?

I wasn’t there so I can’t say which “facts” and “statistics” Booth and her pals spouted to support their hatred of ISRAEL and the OCCUPATION FORCES (but not Jews, oh no), and whether said “facts” and “statistics” were verifiable or lies.

But it is honest to admit that any speaker, of whatever persuasion, could recite a long list of verifiable and genuine facts and statistics that would, in isolation, present a very convincing argument to support pretty much any proposition.

There are plenty of incidents and moments which, as we know, and the Guardian and others prove on a regular basis, which shed a dark and sinister light on Israel and her works. Similarly (see Ken Kelso’s recent posts on this site) it is entirely possible to select facts, statistics and moments from history to support the argument that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people and the entire area “belongs” solely to the Jews.

So the point is that this meeting was simply a forum for people with a defined and clear prejudice to attempt to influence the uneducated and/or the well-meaning (such as S-London) that their view of the world is factually true. The weakness of this position is clear from the fact that they were so scared of having that viewpoint challenged that they had to ban anyone from attending who might have disagreed with them.

It’s very sad, really. And anyone with half an ounce of critical awareness would take anything said at such a meeting with a Dead Sea-sized pinch of salt.

You know, there is a reason that those in support of Palestinian statehood so far outnumbered those against it. The Zionists are on the wrong side of history. The real Jews, may God bless them, understand this and declare it.

”You know, there is a reason that those in support of Palestinian statehood so far outnumbered those against it. The Zionists are on the wrong side of history. The real Jews, may God bless them, understand this and declare it.”

The Palestinians already have a state. It’s called Jordan. Where King Abdullah is in danger of being overthrown by the majority of his citizens, who are Palestinian. Oh, for your information, Jews are Jews, whether they agree with you or not. They’re ALL real! Actually they’re people. Why do they even need to be described as ”Jews”? I never hear Christians being described as ”those Christian people” or ”he/she is Christian”.